New Orleans Every year for the last number of decades I have saved my vacation so I can take off the last two weeks of the year. This began when we had children of course, as our lives began to revolve around the competition between their school schedules and our work requirements. This year I …
Category: Personal Writings
My Brother, Dale
New Orleans Telling my mother the news about my brother, Dale, waited for my return to the city, so now every day, she and I reestablish the facts of the matter, reconfirming his passing. Somehow this seems so metaphorically appropriate for Dale, he is both there, and not there, both known, and unknown, both voluble, witty, …
Oil Prices, Small Diners, and my Uncle Barton Wade Ratliff
Tulsa With the price of gas moving towards $2.50 per gallon in the oil and gas states of Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma, consumers are ecstatic, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is happy. State budgets and countless oil company deals are all built on the assumptions of what a barrel of sweet crude sells for …